February 27, 2017

     This morning the ship was anchored in Esperance Bay and to get to shore the passengers who were not on tours, needed to collect a numbered ticket to know when to go to Deck 2 to step into the lifeboat to be transferred to shore. 

    The sky was covered in gray clouds, there was a light wind and the temperature was about 20 C.

    After breakfast and walking circuits on Deck 5, our wait was about an hour to take one of the lifeboat tender boats.

            Esperance, Western Australia, is located on the Australian southern coast on the western edge of the gulf known as the Great Australia Bight.  The population is about 14,000 people. In 1626 a Dutch expedition sailed along this coast between modern day Albany, Western Australia and Ceduna, South Australia.  The area was surveyed in 1802 by the Australian Matthew Flinder, when he anchored in nearby Lucky Bay.  A decade earlier, Captain George Vancouver had claimed the land for Britain.  Also in 1791 to 1794 a French captain, Bruny d’Entrécasteux was commissioned by the new French government to find the 1780s French expedition led by La Pérouse that was to explore the area.  D’Entrécasteux circumnavigated Australia and Tasmania in the ship, Espérance (the French word for Hope), and another ship, Recherché.  The islands lining the coast near Esperance are known as the Recherché Archipelago.

    In the 1890s Esperance was a port for prospectors heading inland to the Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie gold fields 360 km away.  By 1895 a tent city had sprung up as well as two newspapers, a brewery and four hotels to service the expanded town.

    Esperance had a place on the world stage in the weeks after July 12, 1979 when the NASA (the American National Aviation and Space Administration) spacecraft, SkyLab, crashed in the outback, northeast of the town, about 530 miles east of Perth. Some large pieces of the SkyLab debris, like one of the 12 water tanks, landed on a sheep and cattle ranch.  NASA hoped that the SkyLab debris would break up over the Indian Ocean, but miscalculated.  Just after midnight, the SkyLab path flew over Esperance heading toward Alice Springs.  There were sonic booms as the spacecraft entered the atmosphere and the flaming trail could be seen for miles. We viewed, in the Esperance Museum, some of the pieces that landed in the area. The shire jokingly fined NASA $400 for littering.  On the 30th anniversary, a Californian radio DJ raised donations and paid the fine and was invited to the Skylab crash anniversary celebrations.

    There is an exact Stonehenge replica made of pink granite about 18 km outside of Esperance. Australia’s first wind farm is nearby.  About 55 km east of Esperance is Cape Le Grand which is one of Western Australia's best known and most spectacular National Parks.  The naming of Cape Le Grand has a heroic story about a sailor, named Le Grand, who was in a ship’s crow’s nest looking for an opening through the reefs to get into Esperance Bay before the stormy weather smashed the wooden ship against the rocky reefs.  He spotted a break and the ship found shelter in Esperance Bay.

   We found the Esperance library to use the Wi-Fi, but the system was too slow to upload the blog posts, but we were able to check emails. After visiting the Esperance Museum, we strolled a few streets of the Esperance town center and returned along the foreshore walkway lining the beach to the wharf where the tenders awaited passengers.  The ride to ship was about 20 minutes.

   The temperature had only slightly risen to 23 C and the sun broke through the cloud for just a few minutes. We climbed to the Windjammer buffet on Deck 11 and found Bob and Maureen having lunch and joined them.  We spent the rest of the afternoon reading on Deck 5 and writing the blog.  When most of the passengers were on board we watched as one of the lifeboats was winched back into its cradle, above the Deck 5 promenade.

   Dinner had a Casual dress code tonight. Appetizers chosen  were Seafood Ceviche and Hot Harina Soup.  The main course was Atlantic Salmon with baked potato and carrots or Shrimp Gyoza with bok choy and shitake mushrooms.  Dessert was Chocolate Praline Fingers.

The ship is heading east, so we will be crossing time zones and losing hours as we go to New Zealand.  Overnight the passengers will put their timepieces forward one hour, even though South Australia is 1.5 hours ahead of Western Australia.

Steps 14,593